Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
Max didn’t see Miss Calliope again until he arrived at the tea party forty minutes later. He’d been busy assisting the suitors, ferrying things to the guest cabin to offload Mrs. Zandt and the other household help, who were busy preparing for the party. As a consequence, he arrived after everyone else but Mr. Anderson, whom he was escorting, Mr. Anderson having needed more help than the others in selecting a suit from one of his two trunks for the afternoon event.
The scent of sweet, fresh-from-the-oven pastries and savory hors d’oeuvres wafted in the air as the two of them stepped into the main house, the scent making Max hungry, something about the high country air giving him an appetite. A hubbub of voices came from the parlor.
Still in his butler disguise, his formal suit still pristine, his hair freshly slicked back, new cotton balls uncomfortably in his cheeks, he followed Mr. Anderson into the elegant room, pausing inside the doorway. The parlor was a pleasant size, with plenty of space for these guests and more, but a quick look around told him the young men who’d come to court Miss Calliope were gathered around her at the window on the far side of the room like bears to honey, gathered so tightly that Miss Calliope herself was out of his view.
All six of them, Max noted, feeling unaccountably hostile. Perhaps it was because all six were more fashionably dressed than he, a circumstance he was quite unused to. Perhaps it was because he could hear the pretty tones of Miss Calliope’s voice from among the huddle, though her words were indistinguishable.
Knowing her mother would frown on his interrupting her suitors, he strode to the furniture grouping in the center of the room.
Platters and tiered serving dishes filled with fancy pastries and hors-d’oeuvres covered the long coffee table between the love seat and sofa, Max recognizing more of the lemon cake of which he’d been privileged yesterday to partake.
Mrs. James, more formally dressed than she’d been when she’d greeted her guests, her square-necked, subtly striped silk dress of an impeccable style, sat on the flowered sofa, where she had a good view of her guests.
Bart, still wearing his dark-gray suit, stood beside her at the end of the sofa, his noncommittal, brotherly gaze on the suitors, but Max knew that behind that gaze Bart, too, was watching the young men like a hawk.
Miss Calliope’s other brother, Kit, who was two years older than she, had gone to town, supposedly on urgent ranch business, but Miss Calliope had told Max in confidence that Kit, in addition to being a nervous father-to-be, was immensely shy, preferring the horses and cattle dogs he bred to the company of strangers.
Max gave a formal bow. “Mrs. James,” he said in a quiet tone.
A hint of a smile crossed Mrs. James’s face as she poured out a cup of tea from an even more elegant silver tea service than the one she’d used last night, a tea service his own mother would have coveted as a prime example of Victorian-era Americana. “Max, please give this to Mrs. Bart James, Jr.”
With a nod and a grave butler expression, he took the delicate, gold-rimmed porcelain teacup and saucer into his white-gloved hands, the fragrant bergamot-scented English tea steaming a bit in his face, and headed for Livia, who sat alone on a blue velvet bench by the front window that overlooked the garden and front drive.
White lace sheers covered the windows today, muting the bright afternoon sun. Fragrant bouquets of flowers adorned the mantel over the fireplace and a mahogany console to the left of the parlor door.
Livia, dressed in lavender silk, with loose cap sleeves and a moderate neckline, looked proper and nineteenth century, and he wondered if he fit into this century as well as she did, and what little things gave him away that he was not of this time. “Tell me you’re taking bets,” he said in a quiet, amused voice as he bent and set the teacup on the small, round mahogany table beside her, his gaze flicking to the cluster of suitors.
“June would frown on that,” Livia said, equally quiet, but he caught a fleeting hint of humor in her eyes, and wondered if she and Bart had placed stakes on the six young men.
“What are the odds on Mr. Moss-Packed Roses?” Max murmured, nodding toward Mr. Vann, the cattleman’s son from Cheyenne, who was nearly as tall as Mr. Pretty-Face Pop Idol, and stuck out due to the dashing mustache he wore, unlike the others. “Elegant suit. Proper manners. Good, reputable family?” he asked.
Livia nodded.
“Money?”
“Yes,” she said. “Quite a bit.” She gave him a scrutinizing look over the rim of her teacup as she took a sip. “You sound as if you’ve gone through this before.”
“I have three younger sisters,” he said. “Two of them happily, and most prosperously and eligibly, married. Your mother-in-law reminds me greatly of my own mother in these matters.”
Livia nodded. “Laser focused. No eligible bachelor unturned.”
Max laughed, remembering at the last minute to keep the sound low. “Whom does Miss Calliope favor?”
“I’m not sure. I wasn’t with them in Denver and Cheyenne these last two months.”
“Wasn’t the social season enough time for her to decide?” he said. “Is there a social season in Denver these days? August can be a challenging time to bring people together.”
“That’s part of June’s plan. If a young man is willing to court Cally in the…well, the off-season, and go to the trouble of traveling here in the heat of August, then it means he’s serious about Cally.”
“The first test,” he said.
She grinned. “You’ve heard about that?”
“Miss Calliope mentioned it last night. She wouldn’t tell me what the other two tests are.” He raised an eyebrow, encouraging her to enlighten him.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m not going to share that.”
Outside, dogs barked from near the barn—a kennel was located there, filled with the cattle dogs Kit and the ranch were known for.
Horse hooves swiftly followed.
Max stepped closer to the window, pulling one side of the sleek white lace sheers aside a crack.
The assistant ranch foreman, Luke Wade, whom Max had met yesterday, rode up fast along the drive, stopping outside the house. Leaping off a spotted white-and-brown horse, he ran up the porch steps.
Max’s heart bumped. Evil Prince Hugo? Had Evil Prince Hugo caused more trouble? He started toward the parlor door, to enact his butler duties and find out more, but Bart, who must have heard Luke’s arrival, forestalled him with a palm-out gesture and left the room.
Over by the huddle around Miss Calliope, Finn—Max couldn’t think of him as Mr. Monahan—laughed aloud at something she said and slapped his thigh, Finn the only one of the suitors wearing cowboy boots with his suit, the only one with a fresh, sincere face, all the others too polished in manners and with too-smooth expressions that made Max want to scowl.
“Does young Finn have a chance?” he asked Livia, the other suitors stepping away from the young man in unspoken distaste, leaving a gap between them that Max could finally see through.
Miss Calliope stood in the muted light of the far window, the river and mountains faint behind her through the lace sheers, framing her beauty.
Max’s heart stopped. Good God, her beauty. Her demure calico dress from earlier that afternoon had been replaced by a low-cut number that not only bared her arms and hinted at cleavage but which showed—though he had to admit showed tastefully and elegantly—all her feminine curves. Her thick, shining dark hair was arranged up again, but this time in an intricate twist that matched the tasteful elegance of her dress.
All vibrant mischief had been erased from her lovely face, replaced by a polite, prim, reserved mask that looked like a wax doll.
A beautiful wax doll, but still…
“You’re staring,” Livia whispered.
“For good reason.” Where had Miss Calliope’s vitality gone? Her demure demeanor when the suitors had arrived at the ranch had been bad enough. But this… this … “What did you do with Miss Calliope?”
“That’s her.”
“Yes,” Max said, “but it’s not her .”
Max made his way to Miss Calliope, using his height and bearing to ward off the young men, the scent of their expensive colognes subtle in the warm air. “Miss Calliope,” he said in his formal, British accent, “I have been asked to escort you to your brother in his office.”
“Thank you, Max,” she said in a voice he didn’t recognize. It was as polite and reserved and unlike her tomboy voice as the expression on her face.
Livia, having moved to the sofa beside Mrs. James, called to the suitors to come look at a big new book filled with photographs of Wyoming as Max led Miss Calliope from the parlor and along to the next doorway on that side of the great room—the doorway to Bart’s office, Max careful not to touch her.
Noting that Bart was still on the front porch with Luke, Max followed her into the office and shut the door behind them.
Sunlight streamed in from the two uncovered windows that overlooked the river, glimmering on the highly polished oak desk that dominated the room, and glittering on the glass-fronted gun cabinet filled with antique weapons that at any other time Max would have wanted to examine.
Sunlight illuminated Miss Calliope’s lovely, youthful skin, sunlight gleaming in the silk of her damned alluring dress, and Max was shocked at the fury that had possessed him at the sight of a Miss Calliope so at odds with the Miss Cally who’d rescued him after the flood.
He raised a questioning eyebrow, silently demanding an answer.
That polite, reserved mask broke into a grin. “Yep, it’s me all right,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning forward close enough for him to get a whiff of her rose scent. “I’m being refined, so’s my ma can marry me off.” She gave him another adorable, impish grin, and his heart melted.
“You’re a popular young lady,” he told her, wanting to take her in his arms and kiss her, and stepping back a half pace to make sure that he didn’t.
She gave him one of those sideways glances he’d seen her use with Livia and her brother. “More like my ma’s money is popular,” she said.
“Your mother owns the ranch?”
“She’s officially handed over shares to Bart and Kit now that they’re married and are startin’ their families. I’ll get shares, too, once I’m hitched.” She didn’t look too excited about this prospect, and given how much he’d seen in just the last day about how much she loved this land, it was the getting hitched part that he suspected had dampened her enthusiasm.
“You think these men will be content to live here at the ranch?” he said.
“Finn would. The others?” An expression flitted across her pretty face that made it clear what she thought of the other five men. “They’re only interested in the shares. They don’t care about the Sky Top.”
They don’t care about me.
She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. The disgust that abruptly filled her face was more eloquent than anything she could say.
The door opened with a quiet click . “Calliope, dear,” her mother said in a low tone with a pointed look at Max.
That polite, reserved mask dropped back over Miss Calliope’s face. “Yes, Mother?”
“Come tell your guests about our visit with Mrs. Brown.”
Max returned to the parlor after a discreet few minutes. Stopping just inside the parlor door, he stood in his butler stance, ready to serve.
Miss Calliope sat next to her mother on the sofa in the center of the room, a teacup in her slim, pretty hand, her polite, ladylike voice carrying to him as she recounted to her suitors an adventure in Denver with a Mrs. Brown.
“That’s Molly Brown she’s talking about,” Livia whispered to Max, coming up to his side. “As in, the Unsinkable.”
Max raised an eyebrow. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“You’re the only person here who understands what a kick this is. If I can’t relish the fun parts with you, who can I?” She glanced at Miss Calliope. “She’s a real pistol, as they say out here. Molly Brown, that is.”
“You could say the same of Miss Calliope.”
“Not the same.”
“No?” he said.
“You’ll see. If she lets you know her well enough.”
He watched Miss Calliope charm six young men with that beautiful feminine face, and he realized he preferred the raucous, stallion-riding, forthright young woman to this one. “Her mother wouldn’t encourage her to wed a man who cared only for her money?” he asked. The thought horrified him, though he realized with a touch of irony that that had been a common practice all down his family tree. He himself had had similar experiences with the female version of the money-seeking type, and man or woman, the hint of greed never quite left their faces.
“No. But June will do everything to make sure Cally meets everyone eligible within a three-hundred-mile radius. She wants Cally to make a good match.”
His stomach flinched. His own parents had used the same words in reference to a bride for Max.
“A love match,” Livia said.
He watched the men from Denver and Cheyenne try in turn to charm the wax doll version of Miss Calliope. It was as if she were two different women. “Hard to find love,” he said, “if you don’t know the true woman.”
The dogs over by the barn began to bark.
Horse hooves, many horse hooves, enough to be heard in the parlor, followed, traveling fast.
“Uh, oh,” Livia said, looking past Max toward the front door.
Bart, coming inside from the front porch, crossed fast to her side. “Prince Hugo,” he said in a low tone with a nod toward the front door.